While I’m waiting for the credit advance coil to arrive I worked on getting the backglass done. The machine came with no backglass so I picked up some 3/32″thick glass and cut two sheets to the right size. I had previously ordered a lift bar from Pinball Life and I used some scrap poster frame to hold the two pieces together with some printed artwork between them just like the printed translight will eventually be held in place.
I used Wildman’s image as the starting point and worked for several days to clean it up in photoshop. Unfortunately there is a wide variation in the colors on Darling backglasses on the internet so I’m not exactly sure what precise colors are in the backglass. Some examples have an almost fluorescent red to them which seems to go along with the red on the playfield but that color will not be possible to print. I’m going to have to go with something a little more subdued.
I made a PDF of the artwork and printed it out on plain paper, taped it all together and cut out the openings. The score reel openings are too large and the height is a little too short but not too bad for a first attempt, at least the lights seem to line up ok..
The backglass will need a mask layer to prevent the light from shining through all of the glass. Original backglasses have a silver layer applied to them but most modern reproductions use black for this. I used another image of a Jubilee backglass (4 player version of Darling) that I distorted in Photoshop to line up with my artwork and made a new mask layer from that. I decreased the size of the reel openings and increased the height of the artwork by 1/8 inch and printed it with the mask layer in green and the artwork set to semitransparent so the mask can show through it.
The match lights. Game Over, Same Player Shoots Again, Player Up, Can Play and Tilt lights line up really well but the Ball in Play lights need to move just a little to the right. The opening for the score reels look much better. A little more tweeking and perhaps a full sized printout from Officemax before fully committing to this design.
I’m going to try out GameOnGraphix for printing this backglass, they quoted me something around $60 for printing which is almost $100 less than I paid for Tropic Fun from another vendor. We’ll see how it turns out. BorgDog I’ll send you all of the artwork with mask layer once it is done so you can use it in your VP Darling game.
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